The present invention relates to a three-dimensional manufacturing and assembly plant, and more particularly to a three-dimensional manufacturing and assembly plant in which assembly lines can be three-dimensionally positioned and easily modified, maintenance of assembly lines can be easily performed, extension or reconstruction work of the plant can be easily carried out and electrical load of air conditioners can be saved.
Heretofore, in various assembly and manufacturing plants, such as an auto assembly plant or an electric appliances plant, a low building, such as a building of no more than three stories, is generally employed in order to perform assembly line operations smoothly, using belt conveyors.
However, recently, in order to efficiently utilize land, there has been proposed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 56-134162 a plant with a high-rise building, as shown in FIG. 12. A plurality of stories each has an assembly room (A) and a common storage room (B) along at least one side of the assembly rooms (A).
To be more specific, in the conventional plant as shown in FIG. 12, an air conditioner (C), lighting equipment (D) and an assembly line (E) are installed in each assembly room (A), defined by a partition wall (F), a ceiling (G) and a floor (H). A transfer device (I) is provided to transfer parts or articles between each assembly line (E) and the common storage room (B). The transfer of the articles is carried out through an opening (J) formed at a certain position of the partition wall (F). The opening (J) is formed in advance at a predetermined position of the partition wall (F) in accordance with a manufacturing process of the assembly line.
Further, there has been proposed another type of a manufacturing and assembly plant in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 48-18879. In this high-rise plant, as shown in FIG. 13, assembly lines (E1)-(E5) are constructed with a high-rise racks (K)-(M). Lifters (N), (O) and (P) for conveying articles are provided between the racks (K)-(M).
With this structure, an article (Q) is lifted up to any floor by, for example, the lifter (N), and inspection or manufacturing of the article (Q) is performed. Then the article (Q) is transferred to any floor of, for example, the high-rise rack (L) by the lifter (O). The above operation will be repeated. That is, the three-dimensional assembly line can be realized with the above structure.
With the above structures, as shown in FIGS. 12 and 13, a plant can be constructed in urban areas where the land prices are high, and an urban type of plant can be constructed adjacent to the areas where consumer cities are located.
However, the above plants with high-rise building structures have given rise to the following problems.
(1) Since each floor is definitely partitioned off by a floor board, such as a floor slab formed integrally with a beam, if a part of the assembly line is three-dimensionally placed, that is, a part of the assembly line extends beyond a floor, the assembly line cannot be freely modified.
(2) An air conditioner must be installed at every floor, therefore not only is the cost of the equipment high, but also the cost of maintenance.
(3) As mentioned above, the opening is formed at a predetermined position in accordance with a manufacturing process of the assembly line. If the assembly line is modified, the opening must be formed at a different position, and thus the partition wall must be replaced with a new one. On the other hand, if the assembly line is modified while taking the existing opening into account, the design of the modification is very difficult.
(4) The modification and transposition of the assembly line requires a lot of time. Further, when new equipment extending beyond a floor is introduced, boring work is required to make a hole in the floor slab in order to avoid contact.
(5) Since built-in floor and wall type buildings, having tall ceilings and a low installation density of the machinery equipment, have been constructed for worker's comfort, the cost of construction and the cost of maintenance of the buildings have risen remarkably.